All About Healthy Relationships

In happy relationships, there are five simultaneous relationships happening. Healthy relationships are based upon each person having a relationship with him-or-herself. The relationship with the self is the basic building block of a relationship. Both parties must have broken through their denial systems to some extent, achieved some modicum of honesty with themselves, and become willing to take responsibility for themselves. In general, each must be a person in his or her own right. If one does not have a relationship with the self, it is truly impossible to have a living process (healthy) relationship; it will not be possible to be honest with the “other” if one is not in contact with oneself.

This relationship with the self is a source of pleasure and expansion and needs time and nurturing in order to grow. In order to have a relationship with the self, it is necessary to have quiet time alone, time to enrich one’s spirituality. A relationship with the self takes time. Truly having a relationship with our own process relates us to the process of the universe.

The next two relationships that occur in healthy relationships are each person’s fantasized relationship with the other. Each person has a fantasy about what is go in on with the other and about who the other is. In healthy relationships, it is necessary to bring these fantasized relationships into the conscious self, explore them, and make them available to and share them with the others. These relationships can be the source of a lot of fun, and as long as we know them for what they are, can add richness to our relationship with ourselves and with others.

A fifth relationship in healthy relationships is the actual relationship that exists between the two people. It is dependent upon the previous four having been developed, maintained, and “cleaned up” if necessary. Not that we have to be perfect to have a relationship; relationships provide a major arena for growth and self-awareness, and paradoxically they have to exist consciously and be worked with for the relationship between the self and other requires taking risks. In order to have this relationship, it is necessary to be able to see the self and the other and to respect the process of both. This relationship is a rich source of information for the self. And it is more than that; it is an opportunity to know and be known.

In healthy relationships, the focus is upon respecting one’s own process. When this happens, each – almost be default – respects the others journey and supports it as well as his or her own. Healthy relationships imply supporting each other, yet these is no focus upon “fixing” the other person. Each person’s process is respected and it is recognized that each must do what he or she must. It is understood that if I have feelings about what the other does, these are my feelings and I have to handle them as best I can. Commitment is not incarceration. It is each being committed to her or his own process, sharing that process, and respecting the process of the others.

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